


Love Aside

by AngelDormais



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: (aka this was not planned to be vandermatthews initially and yET), (but maybe not completely), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherly Love, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Curious Couple and their unruly sons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-11-21 18:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelDormais/pseuds/AngelDormais
Summary: Don't you never leave love aside; it's all we got.Sometimes, though, you got to leave other things.(Or: Hosea sees it coming. But he doesn't see enough.)





	1. Chapter 1

“Aw, jus’ a tickle, Hosea.”

That’s what Arthur says, anyhow, his brow furrowed as he clears his throat again, tugs at his bandana as though it might be constricting his throat. There’s a light glisten of sweat on his temples - but to be fair, Hosea can’t think of a minute they’ve been in Shady Belle where the air wasn’t sweltering and thick as the swamp engulfing it.

Dutch is barely paying attention; if he’d heard Hosea’s question at all, he doesn’t show it, still leaning anxiously over the papers spread in front of him.

“Well, alright then,” Hosea says dubiously. “Do you have a minute? Old Dutch here fancies himself the worrywart for once in his life.”

At this, Dutch barks out a laugh, but it’s near-humorless and worried. Arthur seems to notice; his eyebrows raise straight up into the rim of his hat, but he doesn’t comment. Only thumbs the corner of his mouth, wiping away spit from his brief fit of coughing.

“‘Fraid not right now,” he says, looking apologetic. He drops his hand on Dutch’s shoulder. “Trelawney’s jumpin’ to take me gamblin’ on a boat. Gotta get trussed up like a turkey in a suit by tonight if anyone’s going to buy this _oil magnate_ nonsense.”

“You could always take the pipe, _Fenton,_ ” Hosea suggests. “It's very sophisticated!”

Arthur chuckles, and the sound is edged softly with a wheeze. So soft, Hosea realizes, that he wouldn’t have heard it if he weren’t familiar. He frowns.

“Not playin’ _that_ kinda idiot this time, Hosea. You old-timers keep thinkin’, I’ll be back by morning.”

Hosea waves him away with a laugh, and Dutch waves him away without one, and Arthur tips his hat and turns out the door.

It's silent for a few beats that somehow feel thicker. Hosea swallows back the rasp in his own throat and wonders, like the soft old idiot _he's_ become, if Arthur had even slept in the entire half hour he'd been in camp this time. Dutch seems to sense where his thoughts are, because he catches Hosea's attention with a thin sigh.

“We’re gonna need him,” Dutch says quietly. “Hosea, there’s just something about this bank job of yours that tells me we’re going to need Arthur _with_ us on this.”

It strikes Hosea as an odd thing for him to say, because Arthur has _always_ been there for the real big ones: ever Dutch’s loyal enforcer, wrenching away blood and victory and money with his hands in a way that Hosea sometimes hates, and he doesn’t see why this time would be any different. Cautiously, he reaches forward and rests his hand on his friend’s arm.

“Dutch, that boy would climb a mountain for you. Die on it, if you asked.”

To his bewilderment, Dutch doesn’t look encouraged; his eyes flicker to the muddied windows, watching Arthur disappear through the gate on horseback.

“I know that, I do. But - he and John, lately… it just seems like…”

Briefly, Dutch pinches the bridge of his nose, and Hosea worriedly thinks that his headache must have come back. But Dutch’s eyes pop open again, and he exhales, slowly, through his nose. It's an honor uniquely granted to Hosea, to see these cracks and craters in Dutch's confidence; and yet a part of him can't stop from seeing that wolfish glint to his eyes. Even wolves, Hosea thinks, should be able to lower their guard in their own pack.

Dutch's mouth thins.

“No, no. Of course. I'm... I'm being strange. You’re right, Hosea. God willing I will never be forced to ask him to, but you’re right.”

Hosea gives his arm a small pat, wordless, and pulls away with the feeling of acid on his fingertips. Something in the way Dutch had phrased it puts a cold and angry jolt in his veins, but Dutch is under more pressure than he’s used to these days, and there’s enough in Hosea to forgive him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

(he shouldn’t have, hosea thinks later in a sea of blood and cobblestone; and what a damn _fool_ he had been, to think that the words hadn't mattered, when dutch van der linde had always fancied himself the pen and arthur morgan had always been fancied the sword and dutch, with his words, wrote him all away over those papers

and hosea didn’t read it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> presently, a brief venting ficlet because god i miss hosea. ):
> 
> tentatively, an au "hosea lives" miniseries :)


	2. Chapter 2

In fact, Arthur does return by daybreak, looking like a proper buffoon of high society: his hair is trimmed up past his nape, swept neatly back, and his face hasn’t been so clean-shaven since they’d picked him up as a mid-pubescent teen. Watching from the porch with amusement, Hosea wonders what the hell Trelawney had to do to get Arthur so groomed up.

He wonders far less how the hell Arthur had managed to ruin himself before even getting to camp. The man looks like a drowned rat. If not a well-dressed one, Hosea notes with some chagrin, eying the expensive look of the patterned, blue, and very _wet_ vest. Hopefully the girls will be able to get that clean and wearable again, because Hosea very much doubts that Trelawney had been the one to pay for it.

It’s early enough that the skies of Lemoyne are still gray with a murky, crawling sunlight. Arthur doesn’t expect anyone to greet him, given the way he slides off his saddle and heads straight for the coffee pot burbling next to the fire.

Shaking his head and stepping off the porch, Hosea wonders if that boy will ever remember he’s an earlier riser than almost anyone in camp.

“Nuh-uh,” he says quietly as he intercepts Arthur with a soft whack on the shoulder. The younger man whips around to him, his damp hair flopping down into his eyes.

“Hosea?”

“You were expecting the sheriff? Come on.” Taking him by the shoulder - his good one, god knows Arthur won’t bother mentioning if the other one still hurts him - Hosea pushes him towards the manor. “Get yourself out of those clothes. Coffee ain’t gonna dry you off.”

He presses his own mug into Arthur’s hand as he says it, though, and Arthur accepts it with a roll of his eyes. There's a slight tremble under Hosea's palm, which doesn’t make a lick of sense, given it has to be damn near in the eighties already.

"Chrissakes, Hosea, thought all this motherin' is what we kept Miss Grimshaw around for."

“Susan keeps herself around and none of us are brave nor stupid enough to say otherwise," he rasps. He gives the back of Arthur's head a good-natured slap. "Go on. And take a nap while you’re at it.”

“I _didn’t_ gamble away all our savings, by the way. Just in case you were worried,” Arthur drawls.

Hosea smiles. “I wasn’t.”

“S’a matter of fact, it was a pretty good haul.” As they pass over the porch, Arthur squints into the dining room window. “Where’s Dutch?”

“Sleepin’,” Hosea says, and he sees a mirror of his own relief for that fact flash across Arthur’s face. Dutch hasn’t been doing much of it lately, after all. “After driving himself mad with worry over this bank job. It’s a good one, Arthur. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

Arthur gulps at the coffee and clears his throat, stopping in the hallway. “Hell, I’m sure it is, if you cooked it up. Dutch’ll come around. We’re all feelin’ a little jumpy is all.”

Hosea wishes he felt that conviction; that Arthur didn’t have to step up for Dutch this way, too. The cocky bastard who was either going to get them all killed or drag them singlehandedly with him down the path to glory. What a strange, uncanny thing to envision; leaving Arthur looking like an impostor in Dutch’s dream.

“Maybe you’re right,” is all he says.

“Sure.” Arthur wipes at his bare forehead with a frown - lucky he didn’t take his favorite hat out on that boat, Hosea supposes. “I wanna go over this plan. When’s he gettin’ up?”

“Long before you will, I assure you,” Hosea says firmly. He plucks the half-full mug out of Arthur’s hand and gives him a gentle push with the flat of his palm. “I mean it, go sleep off that cold. It won’t do you any favors.”

Arthur gives him an exasperated look, even as he obediently mounts the stairwell. “Told you it’s just an itch.”

Hosea waves him away, sets the coffee on a dresser. He hears the slow groan of Arthur’s footsteps up the stairs, giving him a clear conscience to return to the dining table, where everything’s still spread out, meticulous notes written and scattered in both his and Dutch’s handwriting.

It’s a _good_ job. He’s sure of it, and maybe Dutch isn’t, but the more he goes over it in his head the less he’s sure _why_ that is. Their situation with the Pinkertons is dire, but they’ve been in worse spots.

He picks up a pen and worries the end between his lips.

Something’s changing. In Dutch or in himself or in Arthur, he isn’t rightly sure. But it’s giving Dutch cold feet on this one job, the job that could really end it all, and god as his witness he’s _trying_ , but Hosea is woefully unequipped to pick up all that bullheaded confidence in his stead.

Arthur, he thinks, isn’t. Arthur is as equipped as Dutch himself. If that’s what Dutch needs of him.

“You’re not making much sense to us anymore, old friend,” Hosea mutters to the man sleeping upstairs, his clothes rumpled and mustache uncombed and eyes glinting, always, when Hosea remembers him these days.

He removes the tip of the pen from his teeth and sets it against one of the papers. Letters lined up in two squares; a whole mess of them in one, and a simple _H_ and _AR_ boxed in the other.

A peal of muffled coughs break through the floorboards overhead, stringing curses behind them. Hosea clenches his teeth. What timing Arthur’s got. And what thing, to be stuck between two stubborn sons of bitches who are so completely _agreed_ that Arthur has to throw his hat in with every harebrained scheme.

Would it really kill them all to give the man a day off?

 _We’re going to need Arthur with us on this,_ Dutch’s voice reminds him; all silk and tear and worry, but for _what_ , Hosea doesn’t know, because suddenly he doesn’t think it’s for Arthur.

Hosea flicks his wrist to the paper, decisively scribbling out one of the letters with a bit more force than necessary. Puffing out a breath through his nose, he writes it back into the other box.

Arthur won’t like it. Dutch will most likely hate it. But it’s a compromise, in Hosea’s books, because maybe a part of him still hasn’t forgiven Dutch for those nights with Arthur sick out of his brains from an O’Driscoll bullet. When he’d cornered Dutch like a rabid animal in his tent, and Dutch had just looked at him with dark and red eyes and said, _‘He's got to stay with us,’_ and somehow, it sounded different than it did when he’d said it last night, with that wolfish stare.

And if it’s all the same to any of them, Hosea can take _‘with us’_ to mean whatever he damn well feels like it does.

Right now, he feels like it means Arthur can take a break for once and do an easy distraction job.

Something else Dutch had said last night. Hosea hesitates, tapping his pen against the paper anxiously. Something in his gut is pushing at him to make another big change, but he doesn’t know why, can’t tear out any kind of sensible thread from his brain. Other than the fact that this group, if nothing else, would have a chemistry that’s naturally _distracting_ like no other. His head tells him that it's not enough. He wants a better reason than that.

His instincts are good, though, when it comes to uncoupling from Dutch's dangerous gambits; the ones he can sense coming from far away, like the buzz of an electric storm on his tongue. This is Hosea's job, so it doesn't sit right at all that he's getting the feeling now. But it's as good a reason as any.

Dutch is going to go off the rails at Hosea for taking two of their best off of the main group. But the others are still perfectly capable, it would be _smart_ to have more backup on the outside, and truth be told, he’s feeling a little sour about the whole thing right now.

He darts his hand forward, scribbling out a second pair of initials and replacing them in the second group, same as the first. It happens so fast that Hosea is almost surprised by himself, and he leans back, shaking his head and staring down.

_H, AR, A, JM._

Dutch is going to kill him. If his two boys don’t do it first.

He sets the pen down.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

(as it turns out, none of them killed hosea. he snaps a clip down and wipes rain out of his eyes and thinks that’s where the good news stopped, and probably, it’s everything that went wrong.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought i had impulse control but in fact, i am a monkey fool broken by cowboys and cowboy dads. strap in and please forgive me, because updates will likely be slow!
> 
> in the meantime, find me on tumblr @ throesofangels or angeldormante c:


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the support and comments! this is my first time writing rdr2 characters, so it's been a bit of a struggle, but i think i'm getting there. things should be shaping up away from canon soon - but not too far away.

If age had granted him any real wisdom, Hosea would’ve spent less time worrying about how Arthur and Dutch would react to the roster change, and more time worrying about how _John_ would take it.

Oh, those other two are upset, all right. He can see it in their posture, in the way Dutch is hunched over the table with his hands steepled and his fingers twirling one of the bands on his knuckles; in the way Arthur leans back against the doorframe, arms crossed and one leg slightly bent, following their exchange with quiet and eagle-like eyes.

But it’s John who’s leaning over the table, scowling at the paper with thinly veiled chagrin, and Hosea figures that it’s probably the good fortune of being Hosea that keeps the younger man polite.

“We ain’t goin’ in with the others?”

“Nope. Don’t need you there.”

“You’re kiddin’ me. We’re talkin’ about a big city bank. Don’t like bein’ sidelined, Hosea, not on a job like this,” John says bluntly. His eyes lift to Hosea’s, flashing rebelliously - as much of it is the pure hot blood in him, there’s something cautious swimming in there, too. Something smarter. Some knowledge of the patterns in their plans, and the knowledge that this doesn’t quite fit them.

A part of his chest swells in muted pride: John isn’t half as clueless as he usually makes himself out to be. He and Arthur are the same that way, though they’d both loathe to admit as much.

Then again, It’s an odd move no matter how you cut it, shifting two senior guns to a support role in a heist this big. Let alone their two _most_ senior guns; perhaps not in age or even experience, but certainly as members of the Van der Linde gang’s old guard. Hell, count Hosea himself - and some would, though Hosea is not among them - and that number goes up to three.

“I ain’t sidelining nobody. This is part of the job. An important part.”

“It sounds more like you just don’t want us in the action,” John mumbles. And it’s partly true, at least for one of them. He wishes he had a better reason to give John than misplaced paternal worry and his own dogged sense of dread about the entire ordeal.

Dutch, thumbnails lightly scraping his front teeth, is following the exchange with an almost keen focus. It rubs Hosea the wrong way something awful. For the moment, however, he can only shake his head and push the paper forward.

“My boy, I promise you’ll see plenty of action. Unless explosives followed by exaggerated fits of hysteria at the law ain’t your idea of it?”

“As we have all witnessed, Hosea,” Arthur scoffs, which is the first sound he’s made since dragging John into the room at their behest; “Marston likes runnin’ away from the trouble he makes more than stickin’ with it.”

“Arthur,” Dutch warns sharply, at the exact same moment Hosea sighs and puts a hand to his face. Ignoring them, Arthur unfolds one of his arms and gestures with it.

“Hell, let a couple gators at the other half of his head and he’ll be a far more interestin’ sight than any explosion. Could end up even smarter, too. A goddamn professor.”

John rounds on him, temper flaring. “Shut up, Morgan! Come on, don’t tell me _you’re_ fine with this?”

John’s goading him back; knows him too well for it to be a real question.  Arthur is too loyal to air his own grievances, though, loyal either to Dutch’s craziness or Hosea’s nonsense. Clenching his jaw, Arthur makes his way around to the back of Hosea’s chair. He’s still looking just a shade or so pale. It could easily be the depressing and awful lighting around Shady Belle, Hosea reasons.

“Why you bellyachin’ so bad? They might need guns outside, so we’re the guns.” Arthur tips his head to the blueprint, seemingly calmer after the expulsion of a few snide comments from his system. “It don’t look all that big for a city bank. I reckon the others can handle it.”

“But…” John glances between them all helplessly. “Abigail, too?”

“Jesus, John, she don’t bite. And she’s a damn good thief. You that eager to crawl around a cramped vault with Bill and Micah?”

John snorts.

“When you put it like that, I... guess this doesn’t sound so bad.” He looks at Hosea, then, the way he used to when he was young and wilder than a hog and never quite grew out of that sheepish guilt. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to kick up a fuss. ‘Course we’re fine with comin’ along, just... didn’t expect you to need us there, that’s all.”

There’s still a question in that, and if Hosea felt just a little less groundless these days, he might not have darted his gaze to the side. But he does, and John is sharp enough that he follows the look to Arthur, and Hosea sees surprise and confusion both flit across his face.

It’s gone in the next moment, when Arthur rumbles: “Dutch?”

The man snaps awake, somehow, which seems impossible when he had already been so intently watching them bicker like horses. His lips curl and uncurl and press together, his still-ungroomed mustache contorting.

“This is… not... the choice I would have made,” Dutch says slowly, with such a halting deliberation that it seems to thicken the air in the room with each syllable. He trails off for a few long heartbeats, twisting his rings until the skin around them looks red. Then he lifts his head up with stone in his jaw and dark eyes, glinting and gilded and more afraid than Hosea’s ever seen them. “But it’s your job, brother. I trust you’ve made the right call.”

 _I’m glad someone does_ , Hosea catches himself nearly saying, and only doesn’t say it because everyone would take it the wrong way. Himself most of all, quite likely.

He places his hand over Dutch’s and works the fingers away from those bands, gently. Gives his wrist a careful squeeze. He isn’t surprised to see Dutch’s eyes fall back onto the diagram of the city, but he’d hoped for a bit of a reaction, at least. Sighing again, hating the soft whistle in his throat, he dashes an apologetic look over his shoulder.

“Give us a bit, boys,” he says. “Get some dinner in you, then round up the fellas and Abigail so we can dive into the details.”

“Sure, okay,” Arthur says behind him, and Hosea can hear him swallowing strangely a couple times. Then John marches forward and bumps Arthur’s shoulder with too much force, pulling his attention away as they both wander off.

"' _She don’t bite,’_ that’s what he thinks,” John mutters under his breath, and that’s the last intelligible thing Hosea hears before Arthur starts up some quietly flustered reply that follows them outside.

Huh. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say those two are almost starting to get along again.

There’s no time to chew on it. The door creaks shut, and then Dutch looks at him in exactly the way Hosea knew he would. He makes sure to return the scathing expression twofold.

“Don’t you start.”

“Start? _Start?_ Oh, no, dear friend, I would say we’re just about _finished_ , and before we have even begun!”

Dear god. Always with the theatrics at every little disagreement. Hosea pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to find some patience for a man who is both sleep-deprived and the recent victim of a head injury. Not that Hosea is convinced he’s seen much difference.

He should just be grateful that Dutch had the good grace to keep this conversation behind closed doors.

“Think about this. You, Arthur, Lenny? After the fiasco with that trolley, do you really think the lot of you can just stroll right into the bank?” He snaps his hand out, gesturing at Dutch accusingly. “Look at you! Subtle as a raging bull, and branding their asses, too!”

If he were anyone else, he’s sure he would have disintegrated beneath the look Dutch is giving him now. His friend sucks a quiet breath through his teeth, thumb and forefinger twitching together in front of his mouth as his eyes dart about. A part of Hosea is always vindictively pleased that Dutch has to plan his words so carefully for him, knows he won’t swallow just any old excuse.

With a huff, Dutch thuds his fist back onto the table.

“We have made some mistakes, some _bold_ mistakes,” Dutch says carefully. “I can admit that, Hosea. But John and Arthur? You saw how they took it. They need not pay for the sins of my poor discretion.”

Hosea scoffs. “Ain’t nobody payin’ for nothin’. I want them with me, Dutch. We don’t know how long our distraction is gonna keep the law off you, and at least this way, we can start shootin’ soon as they turn.”

It’s true. His other motives aside, Hosea isn’t nearly stupid enough to follow a gut instinct without making sure there’s a sound strategy that can be built around it. He, Arthur, and John are arguably the best shots in the gang; if they can situate themselves somewhere with high ground once things really start going, the lawmen scurrying around the congested streets of Saint Denis should be laughably easy pickings.

In truth, he’s a bit confused. A part of him expected this resistance, sure - but it’s surprising him a little just _how_ cornered Dutch suddenly looks, and he thinks maybe this was a mistake of his own, changing the script when Dutch has already been so full of self-doubt.

On the other hand: Dutch has been wearing down his nerves lately. Or at least, his consistently poor judgment has.

Hosea isn’t sure he trusts it so much anymore.

Maybe Dutch is a damn mindreader now, too, because his eyes are dark and suspicious as he studies Hosea over the table. He pulls his hand away from Hosea’s grip, almost sullenly, and rubs it over his face. Oh, but he seems so tired. Hosea finds his irritation cooling, his heart breaking all over again.

“I know. I’m not questioning your plan. It’s just… it’s mighty strange, pulling them like this, Hosea. Feels like there’s somethin’ you’re not telling me.”

And hell, Hosea can bite and claw back when there’s a fight, but it’s that _tone_ that gets to him every time. Like his oldest friend is climbing and climbing, with a dozen lives strapped to his belt and his shoulders and his hands, and he can’t see the bottom of the cliff anymore on this side of the mountain nor the other.

Sometimes, Hosea thinks that there never was one. But he’ll never say it.

He tries again: takes Dutch’s hand, pulls it away from his stubbled face. Dutch doesn’t fight him, but still doesn’t look at him, either.

“Alright - you got me. It’s Arthur.”

Dutch’s gaze snaps to him, alert as a rabbit. “Arthur?”

“I’m worried about him. Ain’t been that long since the O’Driscolls worked him over --” he sees Dutch flinch, but continues anyway: “-- and he’s been runnin’ around, barely sleeping, gettin’ into shootouts and takin’ dips in the Lannahechee ever since.”

“He’s tough,” Dutch mutters, almost defensively.

“He’s _sick._ ” Hosea’s tone is firm, and finally, it gets him a flash of interest from Dutch. “Or he’s gettin’ there. Noticed him coughin’ a few days back and it ain’t slowin’ down.”

“Coughing.” Dutch sounds unimpressed. “Hosea, I thought he was well over thirty, not an angry little urchin that needs --”

Hosea cuts him off with a tight squeeze, putting enough force that he knows it has to hurt the other man’s hand. He’s angry again; working himself up into a heat at Dutch for being Dutch and always seeing the outlaw before the boy. _Their_ boy.

He’ll knock Dutch so hard it turns his eyes around as many times as it takes. Someone has to, and it’s always going to be Hosea.

“Ain’t a normal cough,” he grits out. “I would know.”

Dutch eyes him thoughtfully. The alarm is settling back into his face, subdued as it is.

“I… I do think I've noticed.” His voice is thick, edged with a ghost of guilt, eyes flickering as he tries to recall something that hadn’t seemed so important at the time. “Some of the business with Bronte. Not much, but… occasionally. Since we first started dealing with the snake.”

He frowns. “That was weeks ago.”

“Come now,” Dutch says, sounding desperately unhappy and uncertain. “This whole swamp is nothing but a blight. You ain’t been so well, either. I am sure, once we get out of here…”

“Dutch --”

It must be some twist of karma, or otherwise irony, that seizes up in Hosea’s lungs then, but he’s suddenly aware of the fact that his chest is full of nails and not much else. Wheezing, Hosea props his elbows against the table and hunches over in a fit of violent coughing that rattles his ribs.

He hears a chair skid back, feels Dutch’s hand between his shoulder blades. Part of him wants to shove the stubborn bastard off for having his point so conveniently made; the other part seizes the warm and gentle weight, anchors himself to it until the fit passes.

It does, eventually, and he breathes again. Blinks open his wet eyes and stares with dismay at the spittle he’d hacked right onto the map. Wiping his mouth with one wrist, Hosea straightens up and gently pushes Dutch away with the other, too out of breath to give his friend much more than a quietly thankful look. He still has one hand on Hosea’s back, his eyebrows low and worried, lips pressed together.

Poor Dutch, he thinks distantly.

“M’alright." Wheezing, he waves off his dizzy spell. Dutch’s chuckle is as dull as mud.

“Now, Arthur sure didn’t sound like _that_ , as I remember.”

Hosea clears his throat, hates how it’s just making his mind spiral harder. Leaving him trying to remember when his own lungs weren't useless sacks of flesh, when it didn’t seem like a cough here and there was a big deal. Maybe it _isn’t_ , this time, and he’s really just making a big fuss out of nothing after all.

But maybe he’s right.

“Didn’t get here in a day, Dutch. I had a few months I thought was nothin’.” He closes his fingers over the table. Then closes his eyes, too. “Just a bad feeling I got.”

It’s quiet for a long moment. And then Dutch asks: “Should we put the job off? Get him checked by a doctor in Saint Denis?”

Hosea shakes his head. At least it sounds like he’s put enough of a bug in Dutch’s ear that he’s taking it seriously now.

“Reckon tomorrow’s our best shot at the bank for a while, and we don’t wanna risk anyone getting familiar enough to become a loose end." Especially, he can't bring himself to say, if something actually is wrong with Arthur. The last thing they need is bounty hunters or Pinkertons catching wind that their top enforcer isn't well. "Way I figure it, we run this job, get the hell out of town, and force him into the back of a wagon ‘til we pass another place we can bring him to.”

“Ain’t no wagon to Tahiti, Hosea,” Dutch says pointedly, and Hosea is reminded that by the end of tomorrow, he’s got to talk Dutch back into heading west and leaving behind his grass-skirt dreams or whatever the hell he’s in a tizzy about now. He suppresses another sigh.

“The best doctor in _Tahiti,_  then." He knows Dutch can hear the sarcastic tilt to it, and they’ll undoubtedly argue about it plenty, but fortunately it seems as though neither are up for it now. Dutch’s gaze trails back out through the muddied windows, and Hosea’s follows.

He sees Arthur and John at the campfire. Arthur’s tin of stew is mostly untouched in his lap, but he seems healthy enough; he barks out something in good humor and shoves at John so hard that the man nearly topples off the log into the fire. John gesticulates rudely and throws his spoon, which accidentally hits Micah, which actually seems to delight Arthur more than anything else.

“There a reason you need John, too?” Dutch asks quietly.

Hosea smiles. “Always told you I was gonna take the kids and leave one day.”

Dutch chuckles, wearily, but it’s warm and honeyed and every bit like the man he knows. In light of their situation, Dutch is accepting the answer for what it really is: Hosea isn’t sure, but wants both his boys where he can see them, the same way he had when they were twenty-three and thirteen and their guns were nearly bigger than they were.

It’s been a long time since he’s gotten that feeling, and a longer time still since Dutch has humored it. But maybe they’re both feeling a bit uprooted, now, holding onto anything they can, the things that matter most, when even the slightest chance of them slipping away feels like a greater reality than mangoes or the West or a world where they can be free.

Those things, Hosea reckons, are still just out of reach.

"We'll make it," Dutch promises.

His fingers close over Hosea's, and Hosea is ten times more grateful again for the things he doesn’t have to reach for at all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

(love, he would later learn, for all the price he's already paid for his incomplete wisdom; reaches farther than anything. but it's cold, and there's blood on his coat, and he wonders when he let it go.)

 


End file.
